


Streaming Heart

by PlagueOfSquid



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion, ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Alternate Universe - Evangelion AU, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Eldritch Creatures - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Trauma, also serious eva spoilers, everything eva with the sbr boys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-14 17:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14140599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlagueOfSquid/pseuds/PlagueOfSquid
Summary: The first Angel had arrived nearly two months ago. The first in so long, the first he had ever seen. Then, people had panicked, but now it was just calm. There had been another after that. This was the third and here they were, listening to its footsteps echoing down from miles above.“Great. Just fucking great.”





	1. Hibana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm super not following the must be 14 to pilot an EVA rule, because I'm not interested in writing school stuff. So the characters are their canon ages. Just so you know.

It was always so strange, the calm that descended during a crisis. Gyro had seen plenty of people panic before. It came with working in a hospital. He had spent shifts in the emergency room before. Panic was very distinct, something beyond regular fear, and this wasn’t it. No, when something like this happened, people didn’t panic. They just went into a sort of collective shock.

The first Angel had arrived nearly two months ago. The first in so long, the first he had ever seen. Then, people had panicked, but now it was just calm. There had been another after that. This was the third and here they were, listening to its footsteps echoing down from miles above. At least he was safe. If he wasn’t, well… If he wasn’t, than no one was. Nowhere safer than NERV headquarters itself.

He was lucky. Really, he was. He wasn’t normally down here. No, he’d gotten a call from his father on his way to work and it was urgent, so he’d been granted temporary access. Just to the medical wing of course, but even that was rare. So now he was safely in the GeoFront instead of cowering in one of the civilian shelters, which was an improvement. Although he had no idea where his father actually was at the moment.

His father never called. Never. And even more than the Angel up above, that scared him.

It hadn’t really been a conversation, just the instruction to report to the NERV medical facility and the information that his ID would work as a pass for the time being. And then a click. So that was all Gyro needed to know, or at least all Gregorio was willing to tell him, not even a floor or an office to show up at. Although Gyro supposed they would know he was there. He must have been monitored since he set foot in the building. These sort of people didn’t let any information slip by.

There was really only one option. The world was ending and Gregorio wanted to say goodbye. But even that sounded farfetched. His father didn’t have time for sentimentality.

The maze of hallways was busy, but nobody even stopped to look at Gyro. They had important business to attend to, a world to save or something. So they all kept walking and so did he, from one sterile white interior to the next. It could drive a man insane, working here. Nothing but white.

There was a hand on his shoulder and Gyro spun around to face a head of bright pink hair. The person attached was… well, to start with, androgynous. Probably a man, but it was hard to tell.

“Iulius Caesar Zeppeli?”

Gyro winced at his real name. How embarrassing. “Yep. That’s me.”

The pink-haired man didn’t smile or nod or anything a normal person would do to acknowledge an answer. He just turned and started walking down the hallway. “Follow me.”

“I’m supposed to meet my father,” Gyro protested. It wasn’t optional. Gregorio wouldn’t have called just for a social visit.

“Follow me.”

There was a gun at the man’s hip and Gyro couldn’t argue with that, so he followed, deeper and deeper into the heart of NERV. All the while, his ears rang with footsteps.

—

The elevator doors slid open and Gyro was nearly overwhelmed by the smell. It was… Hard to describe. Like blood but stale, old and congealed and rusted. Like something familiar he couldn’t quite remember, although he was sure he’d never smelled anything like it before. He’d have remembered that.

The other man seemed unfazed. He stepped off the elevator briskly and motioned for Gyro to follow. So he did, because he’d come this far and by now he couldn’t really say no.

Fear. That’s what it smelled like. Fear and decay.

This hallway wasn’t clean and white, not even close. It was mechanical, a dull grey studded with pipes and tangled wires. Certainly not a place open to the general public. The floor was solid metal, cold and hard and unforgiving.

Even down here, he could hear the Angel. It wasn’t stopping. The footsteps were punctuated with what Gyro guessed were bombs blasts and missiles and it didn’t even slow down. But surely it would be defeated. They still had the EVAs to go.

There were two. Or rather, there had been two. The last Angel had left one in very bad shape and although it had been more than a month since then, Gyro seriously doubted it was in working order. He hadn’t seen exactly what had happened, just what little footage NERV was willing to release to the media the next day. As far as everyone knew, it had been a disaster. Almost cost them the city.

But the important thing was, it hadn’t. Luckily, there were two EVAs and the other one had picked up the slack. Like it would this time.

A shock like an earthquake rocked the narrow corridor and Gyro stumbled, slamming against the concrete wall hard. He steadied himself and then the pink-haired man grabbed his hand, dragging him forward. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.” The words were quiet but forceful and Gyro found himself wondering if his assumption was entirely correct.

The hallway led to a heavy door with what looked like an airtight seal, bolted in place with rivets the size of Gyro’s head. The man let go and swiped an ID card across a glowing keypad and the bolts slid loose with a hiss of steam. Whatever was in this room, someone did want it getting out.

The door swung open and Gyro had to force himself not to vomit. It was ten times worse without the door in the way, although he had to wonder how the smell escaped in the first place. Maybe it was just soaked into the concrete at this point. Horrible.

He managed to keep his breakfast and let himself be dragged into the room beyond and then it all made a twisted sort of sense. The room was mostly flooded with a red liquid way too close to blood, and when Gyro turned to look, he was staring down what could only be an EVA. This couldn’t happening. The EVA was supposed to be outside, fighting the Angel. Unless…

Unless it was waiting for something. For him.

Sure, he’d thought about piloting one before. Just in the abstract, in the same way he thought about being the hero of an action movie or something. Sort of a childish wish that he didn’t really want fulfilled. Being a pilot would be exciting, but it came with the kind of risks that no one sane would willingly take. And he had a duty to his family to consider. Couldn’t just go dying stupidly like that.

They were standing on a metal catwalk a little above the surface of the liquid and they weren’t alone. Technicians swarmed the scaffolding that encaged the EVA and a large man in a military uniform stood watching and so did-

“What the fuck’s going on?!”

Gregorio Zeppeli looked up at the sound of his son’s voice. “Language, Gyro.”

He was perfectly calm. The whole room shook at this point and the liquid underneath them reflected every vibration and there he was, perfectly calm.

“Gyro,” his father said. “NERV has identified you as a potential pilot. Currently our only reliable pilot is incapacitated. Your mission is to neutralize the Angel.”

“What?” Gyro felt like he was in a dream, and not a good one. He had never been trained. Not in piloting, not in combat, nothing. “I can’t-“

“It doesn’t matter if you can. You’re going to do it.”

That was his whole life in two sentences. There was no denying his father. He didn’t yell, he didn’t hurt him, he just insisted and Gyro obeyed. It was the way a Zeppeli was supposed to act.

Gyro hated him.

He really did. As much as he tried not to, he did. Family was something very important to him and he couldn’t even love his own father. It was cruel.

“No,” Gyro said. “I won’t.”

That was it then. Assuming they survived this, Gyro wouldn’t be welcome back home anymore. It felt like freedom.

Gregorio didn’t object, he just shook his head and looked at Gyro with sad eyes. “Alright. You’ve made your choice. Commander Joestar, you may proceed with the backup pilot.”

The man, Commander Joestar, nodded and the door behind him opened and Gyro realized that he’d made a mistake.

It was a boy. EVA pilots had to be young, but he looked barely out of his teens. Small and blond and fragile, sitting in a wheelchair and wearing a skintight suit that did nothing to hide just how thin he was. The boy didn’t move and he let one of the technicians leave their work on the EVA and push his chair closer instead.

Gyro knew his name, even if he didn’t know his face. The pilot who had failed. Johnny Joestar.

It was strange, meeting a celebrity. Everybody in the city knew Johnny’s name. He was a playboy turned pilot, the ideal that people strived for in these desperate times. Or at least that was what he used to be. After the last Angel, things had gone pretty sour. Now, Johnny’s name was said with disgust. His mistake had cost lives.

This boy didn’t look like an irresponsible brat. He just looked broken.

Johnny reached out to be picked up and of course it had cost him something too. That price was his legs, at least. Probably other things. EVA parts had been scattered all over the city. It was strange, how much a robot could bleed.

The floor rocked with a tremor and Johnny’s chair tipped, sending the boy sprawling across the ground. He didn’t say a word, just started crawling towards the EVA and the way his legs dragged behind him-

Gyro didn’t know why, but he was standing over Johnny, reaching down, lifting him up and back into his chair. Johnny didn’t object, just looked confused, like he was surprised that anyone would help. It was weak, the way he wanted to protect this kid, but he couldn’t stop himself. Johnny felt so light in his arms.

He put Johnny down and turned to face his father. “Changed my mind. I’ll do it. Just don’t make him fight.”

Gregorio didn’t smile. “Good. At least your weakness has a use.”

—

Gyro was nervous and he felt it was entirely justified. Just sitting in the EVA’s cockpit was intimidating, and he didn’t get intimidated easily. And then there was the Angel still rampaging outside, which he didn’t even want to think about right now. So yeah, he was scared, but it didn’t make him a coward. It made him sane.

Shouldn’t something this big have more controls? Airplanes had like a million dials and switches. The console consisted of two joysticks with triggers and really nothing else, just an uncomfortable seat and space for his legs. Somehow, the simplicity worried him. No way could it be this easy.

A voice crackled into life in his ear. “Final checks on Unit 01 complete. Begin launch sequence.” The pink-haired man, he guessed. “Iulius, confirm status.”

“Uh… Ready. And it’s Gyro.”

“Understood,” the man said. “Standby. Release initial restraints.”

Gyro realized something he’d forgotten to ask. “Hang on, what do I call you?”

“Captain HP.” Strange name, but he wasn’t one to talk. “Field commander for NERV operations.”

“Roger that, captain.”

Johnny hadn’t even said thank you. Gyro was putting his life on the line for this kid, and he hadn’t even said thank you. He’d just watched as Gyro climbed into the EVA, all alone in the corner of the room like a discarded piece of furniture. NERV’s star pilot, reduced to nothing.

“Begin LCL fluid submersion.”

The red liquid from outside was pooling around his feet, rising higher and higher. It really did look like blood; it even had the consistency right. Thick and warm, but still able to flow.

“Captain, you trying to drown me?” The liquid was up to his waist and it wasn’t stopping.

“The LCL will deliver oxygen directly to your blood,” HP answered. “Try to get over the initial discomfort quickly.”

By now, the liquid was at his chin and the closed hatch was looking really alarming. Initial discomfort. What an understatement. Gyro opened his mouth to deliver what was sure to be a witty response, and the liquid flooded in. He gagged and coughed on reflex, but it was unnecessary. The captain was right, he could breathe.

“Initialize neural interface.”

The cockpit’s floor lit up like a Christmas tree, like the sky at night. It was stars, like the screen from a movie theater had been placed under him. And they were moving, spinning. Gyro didn’t want to look, but he did. He forced himself to.

There were invisible fingers prying open his skull. He grabbed at the top of his head and found nothing, but the feeling didn’t leave. They were reaching for something, groping blindly like some kind of animal trapped deep below the surface, scratching long nails against bone. Gyro could almost hear it, a terrible scraping whine.

 _Who are you?_ the fingers asked. _Not the right one. Wrong, wrong, not the right one. Who are you?_

 _Gyro,_ he thought. _I’m Gyro._

 _Not Johnny? Not tears and pain and bitterness?_ The fingers felt cold and even in the disgusting warmth of the LCL, Gyro shivered. _Not anger and hatred and disappointment? Not Johnny?_

 _No, not Johnny. Gyro._ Was the boy really all of those things? The fingers told him _yes_ as they carved grooves into the soft tissue of his brain.

 _What is Gyro?_ they asked, digging deeper and deeper. _What is detachment and obedience and loneliness? What is Gyro?_

_Me._

The fingers stopped their probing and suddenly the rest of the world was back, no longer hidden by the rasp on the inside of his skull. Gyro took a deep breath and grimaced at the taste of the LCL. Metallic.

His hands grasped the joysticks and HP’s voice was back. “Launch T minus ten. Nine. Eight…”

The EVA felt like something just outside his field of vision, like he had to strain to understand it was really there. The memory of the fingers bled, gashes on his psyche that he wouldn’t ever be able to heal. So this was piloting. No wonder Johnny was so broken.

“Three. Two. One.”

It sounded like a gunshot. The EVA rocketed upwards and Gyro was flattened against the seat, trying not to fall into the stars below. And all too soon, he stopped and a panel in front of him slid away and he was on the surface.

Descriptions really didn’t do the Angels justice. NERV didn’t like releasing pictures of them to the public and now Gyro could see why.

The thing was mostly a mouth, just one large maw hanging open in the middle of a roughly humanoid figure like a gaping chest wound. The body itself looked like modeling clay, molded into a crude shape by inexperienced fingers. Featureless, except for the mouth, not even a face, just a ring of teeth and the hint of silver somewhere deep in that void.

“Visual on the enemy.” HP sounded calm. At least someone was. “Ugly, isn’t it?”

“Holy shit.” His father could probably hear him, but Gyro didn’t care. “What is it?”

“The Fourth Angel. Wired.”

Gyro barely had time to think before the blank face turned towards him, like a dog following a scent. He had to do something. The Angel took a step and it moved like it didn’t have any joint or bones at all, just flowed from one space to the next like water.

“Gyro, focus on walking first. You need to find cover.”

The triggers shook in his hands and the EVA raised its foot. It came down hard, slipping out from under it, and the machine was thrown to its hands and knees. Thinking was a lot harder than most people gave it credit for. Moving his body was so natural. This wasn’t even close.

“Synch rates are dropping! Concentrate!”

Gyro was trying as hard as he could, but the Angel took another step and another and it was getting closer by the second. Just looking at it made his ears ring. He couldn’t move. The EVA wasn’t responding.

No. He had to do this. He had to or it would be Johnny trapped like him, frozen to the spot. And that boy was too cute for something like this.

The EVA surged forward, still on all fours. It scuttled like a spider, clumsy and tripping over itself, sliding behind a skyscraper that looked decently sturdy.

“Okay, so he’s not a natural.” HP was talking to someone else in the command room, but Gyro could still hear him. And he had to agree. “Gyro, you need to get at least fifty feet away and plan your attack carefully. The Angel, it has-“

His voice was interrupted by a sheer, biting pain. Gyro’s left arm- No, the Eva’s left arm. There was an enormous fishhook embedded deeply in something that looked way too much like flesh. And Gyro could feel it in his own body, like the world’s most fucked up mirror. He bit back a scream and pushed the joystick he was still holding forward.

“C’mon! Move, you piece of junk!”

“Gyro!” HP wasn’t yelling, but this was something close. “Watch out!”

His right arm was wrenched back, impaled by a second hook, twisted back at a dangerous angle. This thing was going to break his arms. It would break his arms and then it would finish him off. And the fucking EVA still wouldn’t move.

He’d failed everyone. He’d failed Johnny.

There were fingers scraping at the inside of his forehead. _What do you know about Johnny?_

 _That he’s dead if something happens to me and this Angel destroys NERV,_ Gyro thought furiously. _That I’m trying to protect him._

_Nothing. That’s what you know. Nothing._

The hooks were sunk deep and something was pulling on them, forcing his arms farther and farther back. _I want to know more._

The fingers continued their scratching. _Will you promise me something?_

Me. That was new. The fingers hadn’t had a me before. _Alright._

_Promise me you’ll take care of him._

_I promise._

The EVA shuddered into motion with a great scraping of metal, dragging its arms forward and the hooks with them. Each hand grabbed a line and pulled and from behind there was an all too human scream. Gyro slammed the joysticks forward and the hooks loosened until they were ripped from the EVA’s body and he turned to face the Angel.

From the center of the mouth, there was a spool of fishing wire and a pair of bloody hooks and behind that, something red and perfectly spherical. Gyro hesitated, but the Eva didn’t. It lunged at the Angel, catching the hooks as they were cast again and yanking the creature closer.

Gyro wasn’t doing anything. He wasn’t even pressing the triggers. The EVA was moving on its own. It drove a fist into the Angel’s mouth, ripping out a quivering mass of flesh that Gyro supposed was a tongue. And then it began to pummel the sphere, cracking the perfect surface with the force of the strikes. One after another, until the cracks splintered and the whole thing fell to pieces, a puddle of blood and teeth.

It was horrible.

The EVA screeched to a halt and Gyro sat in shock, staring at the carnage it had left.

—

Apartment Block 12, Unit 7C. That was what the paper said. But it didn’t seem right. The light was on in the window and the curtains were drawn. This was supposed to be empty. This was supposed to be his.

Gyro knocked on the door, not really expecting an answer. Hoping he wouldn’t get one. He didn’t. That was good. Maybe the light was just a mistake, something the landlord had left on by accident. He tried the handle and it wasn’t locked.

As soon as the door swung open, Gyro could tell that someone lived here. A very messy someone. The floor was strewn with wrappers and trash, and the table wasn’t any better. An absolute mess. Who would rent out an apartment in this state?

A bedroom door slammed open and Gyro got his answer. There was Johnny, tired and absolutely pissed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Gyro looked at the paper and then back at Johnny. “I think I live here now.” He didn’t even realize that this was the first time he’d heard the boy speak. It wasn’t exactly what he’d expected. Johnny looked sweet, but his voice was harsh and cold.

“Great. Just fucking great.”

At least it would make his promise easier.


	2. Patchwork Staccato

“Fuck off. I don’t want your pity.”

That was all Johnny gave him, fuck off and then a closed bedroom door. Hardly the little hero he was supposed to be, but that boy wasn’t supposed to mess up and nearly get everyone killed, so he was long gone anyway.

He didn’t pity Johnny. He didn’t.

He did.

Gyro really was meant to be a doctor. It was lucky he’d been born a Zeppeli because the medical field just came naturally to him. Fixing people made sense in a way that nothing else did. So maybe he pitied Johnny, but he couldn’t help it.

It had already been growing dark outside when Gyro had knocked on the apartment’s front door and now it was deep in the evening. He was tired. It had been a long day. He was tired and hungry and full of thoughts he wanted to forget.

The fridge didn’t have much in the way of food. There was beer and a few bottles of something stronger, but the actual food consisted of leftover take-out and a moldy loaf of bread next to wilting vegetables. No wonder Johnny looked so thin.

This wasn’t how he’d imagined EVA pilots lived. Johnny had saved the city before, probably the whole world. Even if he was a fuck-up, he deserved better than this. Or maybe he didn’t.

The day after the Second Angel had been chaos. Gyro had never seen the hospital so full. They had run out of beds. But by the end of the day, most of those beds just held corpses anyway. There hadn’t been time to save everybody and there hadn’t been enough bandages to stop the blood.

The story they had gotten was a rogue pilot, rushing in before he was ordered to and ending up with his EVA in pieces. And because of him, the Angel had struck near one of the larger shelters and the impact had weakened the supports enough that the ceiling fell in. It was contained and disposed of quickly after that, but the damage was already done and it was Johnny’s fault.

But the strange thing was, Gyro didn’t hate him. He’d watched plenty of people die that day and he still didn’t hate Johnny. Tears and pain and bitterness. Anger and hatred and disappointment. All of that was Johnny. He couldn’t hate someone like that.

Groceries would have to wait until tomorrow. For now, Gyro found a packet of instant ramen and that was better than nothing. He set about boiling some water. Johnny had a few pots and pans, covered with a layer of dust. So he didn’t cook.

The water was boiling nicely when Gyro went to knock on Johnny’s door. “Hey. I’m making dinner. Want some?”

There was no answer.

Gyro was no good at this shit. He was no good at talking to people, no good at understanding them, not even close. There was something wrong with Johnny. Not just his physical injuries, something really wrong.

People were so complicated. It all made sense on the operating table, blood and bone and muscle tied together with threads of sinew. But together they made something more than their parts, something that couldn’t be fixed with a needle and thread.

It was cruel, the way the world worked. Johnny might not be a hero, but he didn’t deserve whatever this was.

—

The next morning dawned gray and rainy and that was probably for the best. The city needed a good downpour. The Angel had left it beaten and bloody, literally in the second case. It would take a while for all the blood to wash off. As Gyro had discovered yesterday, when Angels died they just kinda… dissolved. No wonder there had been so much blood the first two times.

Gyro stuck his head out of the spare bedroom and looked around cautiously. It wasn’t like he was afraid of Johnny or anything, but after the previous evening he had reason to be careful. Johnny was standoffish to say the least and he hadn’t shown up at all after their, for lack of a better word, conversation. The door had been shut when Gyro went to bed and as far as he knew, it had stayed that way all night.

It wasn’t like he’d asked for this forced closeness, but he didn’t hate the idea either. Johnny was curious and Gyro had made a promise that he intended to keep.

He fully expected Johnny to be absent for breakfast, but when he crept into the kitchen there he was, messy hair and pajamas and everything. Cute wasn’t quite the right word to describe Johnny. Something between the gleam in a reptile’s eye and the edge of broken glass.

“So you’re still here.” Johnny sounded tired. There was a glass of water in front of him and nothing else.

Gyro shrugged. “Yeah. Gotta sleep somewhere.” He had an apartment, but it was actually in a suburb a few miles out and HP had said this would be more convenient in the event of another emergency. And Gyro wasn’t very good at ignoring orders. “Did you think I’d just leave?”

“Pretty much. I didn’t exactly give you a warm welcome.” It wasn’t remorse. No, it was something more resigned, closer to acceptance.

“It’s gonna take a lot more than fuck off to get rid of me.”

Johnny- well, he didn’t smile at that, just looked down at the water and shook his head like _can you believe this guy._

He couldn’t be out of his teens. His face still had that softness of childhood and he looked just barely over five foot, although it was hard to tell with him sitting down. Too young for fighting, too young for fingers scraping holes on the inside of his head. Too young to be this kind of quiet.

Gyro remembered a couple boxes of cereal from last night and the milk hadn’t looked too old, so he found a clean bowl and spoon and sat down across the table from Johnny. The boy stared at him like breakfast was a foreign concept.

“No, just eat my food. That’s fine. Not like I spent money on that or anything.” Johnny said, completely deadpan, and Gyro nearly snorted cereal out of his nose.

He managed to clear his throat after a few coughs. “Do you want some breakfast?”

Johnny shook his head and opened his hand. A collection of pills sat on his palm. “It’ll just make me sick.”

Gyro didn’t recognize most of them, but he knew a few. Painkillers, and strong ones at that. “You know it helps to take them with food, right?”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Gyro answered. “I’m a doctor. Surgeon, actually. I’m not just talking out of my ass here. It’ll make you feel better.” He stood up and grabbed Johnny a bowl. “Nobody told you that?”

“Nobody,” Johnny repeated, and he didn’t look offended even though he really should. Any doctor worth their overpriced degree should have told Johnny that when he got the prescription.

He was reminded of their first meeting, of Johnny left alone like an object, like a broken thing. It seemed like it happened a lot.

Johnny poured milk on his cereal and there was a funny look on his face, so deliberately blank. “You’re a doctor?”

“I am.” It hadn’t really been a choice. His father was a doctor and his father before him, so Gyro was one too. Just the way being a Zeppeli worked. “Like I said, really more of a surgeon, but I went to medical school and everything.”

“I should have guessed you were.” That was disappointment creeping into Johnny’s voice and he had no idea why.

“Really? Most people say I don’t look like a doctor.”

“You act like one.”

So that was still bothering him, echoes of last night. “I don’t pity you.” Maybe if he said it aloud, he could make it true.

Johnny’s face didn’t change, but his eyes did. There was something fierce in them. “Yes you do.” And just as soon as they flared, the flames died and he was cold again. “I don’t blame you. I’m pathetic.”

Gyro dropped his spoon and it clanged against the rim of the bowl, nearly spilling cereal everywhere. This wasn’t the Johnny he’d expected, not at all. Every description of the young pilot contained one key detail: his arrogance. Johnny had seemed like the sort of kid who would brag about doing a trip to the grocery store. He was supposed to be all ego and hot air, the worst kind of rich brat imaginable. Gyro hadn’t believed all of it. Reporters liked to tell a good story and maybe the more salacious details were exaggerations, but he shouldn’t be such an opposite. He shouldn’t hate himself.

Something awful had happened, Gyro didn’t have to be a doctor to see that. Johnny wasn’t okay. He was lonely and bitter and so fucking not okay that he was practically screaming it at the whole world.

_Promise me you’ll take care of him._

So this was what the thing in the EVA had meant. Johnny needed help. He needed it so bad that even a robot could tell. Gyro wasn’t the right man for the job. Bodies were easy to fix, but minds weren’t so simple. Under all that bone and blood was a Gordian’s knot of pain and memories and there was nothing a scalpel could do without destroying it entirely.

“You’re not pathetic,” Gyro said, and it felt like the beginning of something.

—

The best thing he could call his second day at NERV was uneventful. Turned out there was a lot more to being a pilot than just fighting Angels. There was also reading to do.

Someone had actually taken the time to make a manual of sorts for the EVAs and even though it was textbook-sized, it contained surprisingly little information. So it was a long read, but not a particularly interesting one. Gyro supposed a lot of the details were classified, but he was the one piloting this thing after all. Shouldn’t he know a little about how it worked?

This had to be how soldiers felt and maybe he was a soldier now. It was absolutely vital for a doctor to know all the details of a situation, but soldiers never got the whole story. It was too much of a risk. Better if secrets stayed secret.

He didn’t want to be a solider and he didn’t want Johnny to be one either. Soldiers were like monks in a sense, willing to lose everything for their loyalty. Johnny had already lost too much.

After his homework, it was time for a tour of NERV’s command center. HP led him through the nest of computer consoles and office chairs, stepping gingerly over loose cables as they went. It was all designed to monitor and conduct operations with the EVAs. Gyro wondered just how long this place had existed, buried deep below the city. The First Angel had only appeared two months ago and something like this took time to build. But so would the EVAs themselves.

HP stopped in an open space directly in front of the massive screen. “And this is where I direct you from.”

“So you’re what, the president of NERV?”

He shook his head. “Operations director. Commander Joestar is in charge of the project.”

Something clicked that hadn’t before, hidden in the chaos of the Angel attack and everything that came with it. “Joestar? Like Johnny?”

“Yes,” HP said. “The Commander’s Johnny’s father.”

_“Commander Joestar, you may proceed with the backup pilot.”_

That was how Gregorio had said it. Not Johnny’s name, not ‘your son’, just ‘the backup pilot’ like Johnny was a thing to be used. And maybe he was to NERV, but he shouldn’t be to the Commander. He was his son.

Johnny, all alone in his mess of an apartment, so small and quiet while the Angel outside sounded like it was just above their heads, sarcastic and swearing like a sailor, so light in Gyro’s arms. Tears and pain and bitterness the thing in the EVA had said and it wasn’t wrong. Johnny wasn’t okay and his father didn’t even seem to notice. Or maybe he had and he’d decided the boy wasn’t worth his time. Gyro wasn’t sure which was worse.

“What happened to him? To Johnny, I mean.” The question had never been resolved on the civilian news. It was funny, how a whole city could be kept in the dark like that. The Angel was dead and that was all anyone cared about.

“Disobedience,” HP answered, and his face was stern. “Johnny didn’t listen to his orders. There’s no room for error like that on the battlefield.”

“And his legs?”

“Injuries sustained as a result of his actions. Paralysis from the waist down.” There was no empathy in HP’s voice. He was a soldier through and through. “He’s lucky it’s not worse.”

Direct questions weren’t getting him anywhere, so Gyro tried a different tact. “You know, maybe I could help. I’m not a physical therapist or anything, but I am a doctor. If I knew the specifics…”

“That’s classified information,” HP said, and his voice was a bit softer this time. “But I can tell you they’re not pleasant.”

Gyro didn’t doubt he was right.


End file.
